Defense lawyer Norman A. Pattis sent a letter to President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday, requesting he pardon January 6th political prisoner Joseph Biggs once he’s officially back in the White House.
After congratulating Trump on his re-election, Pattis said he is “now in a position to close a painful chapter in American history involving the prosecution and imprisonment of protesters at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
“On behalf of Joseph Biggs, I am urging you to do so by granting Mr. Biggs’ request for a complete pardon for his actions on that day,” the attorney added before describing how the establishment is making an example out of Biggs for being associated with the group Proud Boys.
Pattis noted that Biggs and four other Proud Boys members were convicted by a Washington, D.C. jury and sentenced to lengthy periods of incarceration, writing, “Mr. Biggs was sentenced to 17 years in prison by United States District Court Judge Timonthy J. Kelly. While the sentence was well below what the Government sought, it was, and it remains, an obscene and vindictive prosecution.”
Continuing, Biggs’ lawyer provided a background on his war hero client, explaining, “Retired Staff Sergeant Joseph Randall Biggs served with distinction in the United States Army for almost 8 years until he was honorably discharged due to a complete disability in 2012. He saw active duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, receiving a Purple Heart as a result of combat injuries.”
“Upon retirement, he received a disability pension which he used to support his daughter, now aged seven. A resident of Florida at the time of his arrest, he worked as a journalist, social media personality and veterans advocate since his military discharge. He is legally separated from his wife, who is the mother of their child. Until his arrest, he was a full-time caregiver for his daughter. He is 40 years old. His highest level of education is a GED,” the letter continued.
After listing the crimes Biggs was charged with, Pattis wrote that his client has already served over three years in prison and lost his military pension due to being convicted of “seditious conspiracy.”
The attorney then cited rulings by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1833 and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1927 that provide reasons for presidential pardons, telling Trump, “both mercy and public interest would be served by the grant of a full pardon in Mr. Biggs’s case.”
The message went on to list times throughout American history where pardon power was used from President George Washington to the Civil War and all the way up to Sleepy Joe Biden himself.
“The pardon power has been used historically as a means of promoting national unity after periods of deep division in the nation as a whole. This is one of those times,” Pattis suggested.
He also described how a verbal notice that Jan. 6 political prisoners will be pardoned or given amnesty would stop the current administration from carrying out prosecutions up until Trump’s Inauguration Day.
Pattis called out Biden AG Merrick Garland, writing, “Charles Dickens wrote famously in Oliver Twist that the law is a (sic) ‘ass.’ There have been few greater ‘asses’ in American public life in recent years than Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has directed a bitter and vindictive prosecution of well nearly 1300 protestors at the Capitol on January 6. Strong and decisive executive action can close this chapter once and for all and focus the nation’s attention on the future.”
The legal practitioner next highlighted that Trump is “no stranger to prosecutions warped by partisan vendetta,” and that “Mr. Biggs also has been victimized by a cynical misuse of the law.”
“Mr. President, the time for a pardon is past due. We ask you to make the pardon of Mr. Biggs a top priority in your administration. We make this appeal directly to you because we believe in the power of justice and the ability of a courageous leader to make a real and sustaining difference in American life,” Pattis concluded the letter.
Read the full message to Trump below: